Under Eldermont
The caves of the now-dead ancient dragon had been the best experience of his life. The magic, the essence of life, just being underground again, seeing the night inside the cave, brought his early childhood back. Not good years, none of them were, but not the worst, and well before he knew what to make of his situation.
Ian occasionally slipped into the sewers and caves below Eldermont, just to get a touch of that Underdark feel. He knew there was a goblin somewhere in the area…skulking in the sewers, but it didn’t’ seem predatory. It hadn’t killed anything that he could tell. It ate rodents…so maybe it killed some rats...nothing to worry about.
The carnival that was the events surrounding King Vax and the heroes leaving for the “final battle” had distracted most of the growing city with celebrations and farewells. Ian, an orphan at best, found solace in solitude.
Roaming the underground of Eldermont, while perhaps being lost in imagination, Ian bumped into a short cloaked and quite stinky figure…jumping back while drawing his sword, Ian was enguarde in a second from training and muscle memory.
Gujk was so used to being alone at this point, he had let his guard down. Turning a corner and running into the rambling arm of some forsaken corpse trying to grab his calf while he walked by freaked him. Running full sprint down the poor excuse for a sewer that the Eldermont system was, Gujk, ducked, sprinted, leaped, ducked, twisted, slid, jumped and then sprinted around a corner only to run into a dark elf…what the…
“Shhhhh…..” the dark one with pointy ears whispered…there was something different about this one…not as “dark” and the other fey from the underdark.
Silence reigned for a few minutes before the dark one spoke again, “Why are you here, sero goblinus?”
“I…I…I do not know what a sero…”Gujk quivered in reply before being interrupted.
“TELL ME OR DIE!!!” the dark elf screamed in the old version of the goblin tongue…the only version Gujk knew…it worked.
For the next hour, Ian listened to the tale of Gujk, the goblin warrior/assassin/pawn, who was the only survivor of the crew sent after the one known as “T’na”…to gather his soul and return it to the Goblins of the Wild…the true owners of his destiny…for they needed it…without it/him, they would perish.
Why T'na was so important Gujk couldn't explain. He only said, "He's Ex. or he has Ex's soul...that's what we need...we need Ex, but T'na has him or absorbed him, or something like that...I'm not important enough for explanations.
It probably doesn't matter anymore. I don't even know if my clan still exists, but if it does, they'll kill me on sight. Only if I return with him will I survive their wrath...and even then they'll probably kill me for being late.
"Do not leave these sewers and do not get caught, sero goblinus. I shall let you live for now as long as you tell me of interesting things you hear, especially concerning the king or heroes of Eldermont. I might even reward you if the information you provide proves valuable. Do you agree to these terms?" Ian inquired.
Ian didn’t know what to expect when and if the King and heroes returned, he would get an explanation for what had happened, or what T’na would say about goblins hunting him…or if he should tell the King. For the first time, he considered his loyalty and to whom it belonged…would he tell them everything he knew or wait to see how honest they were with him first…no…he wouldn’t wait…he couldn’t wait to see the look on T’na’s face when he told him about the goblins.
